A warm trickle started from my nose and there was a coppery taste on my lips.
“What you are—what we both are—it’s not something I can just take and you can’t just gift it to me. I need a conduit, and that’s where Christina comes in. Her blood holds the key to you giving your power to me.”
I stared at her as my nose continued to drip blood. She was mad, utterly and completely nuts. What made her think I would ever do something like that? Killing a child just so I could give her my power….
“Your mind is in turmoil, Amber; I can practically hear your thoughts and doubts swirling around in that pretty little head of yours.”
“I won’t do it. I won’t let you use Christina….”
The rope binding my wrists finally loosened, the flicker of heat from my fingertips dancing up along my arms, but I held my body as still as I possibly could despite the pain.
“I know. That’s why he’s here…..” Lily jerked her head in Graham’s direction, her expression pitying as she caught sight of the tenderness reflected in his gaze. “He loves her. It’s so sweet, if not a little tragic.”
Jessica seemed to understand exactly what Lily was getting at and she stepped out from behind me, crossing the graveyard to pause in front of her father.
“I know you have a soft spot for him, that you don’t want to see him die. So I’m going to give you a choice.”
I could tell from the direction her words were going in that I wasn’t going to like whatever choice she had in mind.
“Conduct the spell using the conduit and pass your power to me, or I’ll have them both killed.”
“I won’t let you do this, Lily,” I said, freeing my hands from the ropes completely.
“You don’t have a choice,” she said, lowering her voice and forcing a little more power into it. Christina cried out as blood began to trickle from her ears.
“Morgan!” Graham shouted, but I couldn’t look at him; I couldn’t take my eyes off the terrified Christina.
Shaking free of my ropes, I climbed slowly and unsteadily to my feet. The blood still trickled from my nose but it didn’t matter. I’d lived my life utterly powerless, a witch devoid of any true magic, but that wasn’t true anymore.
“I see all those years training to get into the Elite weren’t a complete waste, then,” Lily said with a sneer as she took a threatening step towards me.
I didn’t answer her; instead, I focussed my concentration in on the only thing I could do. The only thing I knew with any degree of certainty that I was capable of doing.
The ground cracked in a long, ragged line that ran between where I stood and Lily; the tombstones in the way toppled to the side, the really old ones breaking apart and crumbling into smaller chunks that landed in the grass.
“What are you doing?” she said, curiosity getting the better of her as she sidestepped a particularly large crack that formed in the ground.
“Sending you to Hell,” I said as the demon’s clawed hand scrabbled at the ground. I pushed my power into it, forcing the ground to give up its prize, to spill forth the demon.
Lily staggered backwards, her eyes widening in horror as she stared up at the towering creature that had erupted from the earth between us.
“You idiot, have you any idea of what you’re doing? Of the price a creature like this demands?” Lily shouted at me, but I didn’t care.
I wasn’t a child anymore, and I sure as hell wasn’t frightened.
The beast stared at me, its soulless eyes studying my face, searching for a weakness that it wouldn’t find.
Lifting my hand, I pointed straight at Lily.
I could feel the beast’s will pushing back against me, its mind searching through mine like long, icy fingers and it took all of my strength just to stay on my feet and not drop to my knees in front of it.
Without warning, it turned and raced towards Lily, her scream drowned out by the snarling sound that ripped from its throat. I didn’t hesitate; crossing the graveyard, I dropped to the ground in front of Christina and quickly worked the ropes holding her down loose.
She stared up at me, her frightened eyes widening a little as the air next to my head shifted.
Ducking to the side, the baseball bat slammed into my shoulder instead of my head and I rolled away. Jessica’s partner closed in on me, lifting the bat once more as he prepared to bring it down on my head.
Lifting my hands, I wished for cleansing fire. I wished for enough fire to completely consume him, leaving nothing in its wake but ash. The vampire advanced on me once more and I pushed as much power as I could into my intention. My mother had taught me that without true intention magic, couldn’t work; you had to mean it, and I did.
Nothing happened: no fire, no spark, not even a little bit of smoke.
I dived out of the way once more as the vampire swung the bat at my head, missing by just a hair’s breadth. Rolling away across the ground, I scooped up a piece of rock as the vampire crashed into me, sending us both tumbling into one of the still-intact headstones.
The blow knocked the air out of my lungs, but I swung the chunk of limestone up at his head anyway. It was either him or me, and there was no way I was going to let a two-bit street vamp get the better of me.
He roared in pain as the rock connected with his skull, snapping his head to one side. Blood poured from his mouth, the angle of his jaw crooked as he turned back to face me.
“You bitch! You broke my jaw!”
I didn’t wait for him to finish; bringing the rock up underneath his face, I tried to slam it into him once more, but he caught my arm and slammed it down into the ground.
I felt the bone snap as he drove my wrist down over the edge of a grave marker and I screamed.
The sound ripped from my throat, pain and rage combining as I wrapped my other hand around his neck.
The world slowed; nothing moved, the breeze paused as the world seemed to suck in a breath.
My heart hammered in my chest and the place where my hand was holding the vampire grew warm and then hot. Flames licked at his jaw, creeping upwards faster than the eye could follow.
He tried to throw himself away from me, but I clung to him. He’d escaped me once before and I couldn’t let it happen a second time. He knew things about me that no one on this earth should ever know. He knew my secret, and I planned on letting it die with him.
He thrashed in my grip, his screams of pain appealing to a part of me I didn’t even know existed within me.
When I let him go, he landed on his back in the grass, the fire spreading across his chest and down over his hips and legs like someone doused in accelerant.
The sound of Jessica howling in agony pulled my attention from the vamp on the ground and I turned to watch Graham and Nic pinning her down on the ground.
Where the hell had Nic come from? Had I been that distracted that I hadn’t noticed when he’d appeared on the scene?
My head spun in sickening circles and I dug my fingers into the earth to try and steady myself, but it was no use. The combination of pain and exhaustion was wearing me down, and the only thing that kept me moving forward on the grassy ground was the knowledge that I had a demon to deal with.
“Amber!” Graham called out, and I turned my head just in time to see the demon I’d dragged out of Hell bearing down on me. It grinned, its mouth filled with the hundreds of fangs that looked like something straight out of a horror movie.
Scrabbling across the ground, I grabbed the baseball bat dropped by the vamp I’d reduced to so much smouldering ash. Climbing to my feet, I swung the bat as soon as the demon was within reaching distance.
The blow ricocheted up my arm and into my shoulders and neck, my broken wrist protesting, causing my grip on the bat to be weaker than it should have been.
“So easily you forget how to control me,” he said, grabbing the front of my shirt and dragging me towards him.
I focussed my energy on him, but all I succeeded in doing was making the poundi
ng in my head worse.
“You’re weak and pathetic, far too weak to harness the gift I bring,” it said as it wrapped its clawed hand around my broken arm and squeezed.
A scream ripped from my throat, a ragged sound that burned up from my core and poured out my mouth.
“Get the hell away from her!” Nic’s voice cut through the pain that screamed in my head and I was only vaguely aware of the demon releasing me from his grip.
The ground rushed up to meet me and I did nothing to protect myself from the fall. He was right, I was too weak and pathetic to control something like him. Even Lily had been right to call me an idiot, but what choice did I have? I had to do something, and summoning a demon seemed like the best idea at the time.
My magic may have been the same as Lily’s—the first born Shadow Sorceresses in several centuries—but she had control over her power and I had nothing. By trying to protect me, by trying to protect the world, from my gift, my mother had left me open and vulnerable.
There was a grunt of pain and I lifted my head from the grass to watch the demon pick Nic up as though he weighed nothing more than a small bag of sugar. It threw him, sending his body crashing into Graham, who was rushing forward to help.
“Pathetic humans. You have no idea what you’re dealing with. You cannot hurt me; I am of Hell, and I will grind your bones to dust before….”
I pushed up onto my knees, my body protesting the abuse it had already suffered. All of my magical barriers were gone; metaphysically speaking, I was wide open, a gaping wound, bleeding pure magic.
But it gave me an advantage, one I hadn’t honestly expected.
The demon strode towards me, surprisingly graceful for something so huge. “When I kill you, I will be free,” it said, towering over me.
“Not unless I send you back to Hell first,” I said, gripping the shard of rock I’d found in the grass.
I moved fast, slicing my hand open on the rock, my bright blood instantly welling in the wound before I slammed it into the ground.
“By earth and blood, I strip you of your power; this plane no longer welcomes you, and I command you back to Hell!”
They were the words my mother had used to send my father’s killer back to Hell. They’d worked then, and I could only hope they would work now.
The ground boiled beneath my hands, my blood soaking into the dirt, but it wasn’t enough. The beast laughed and wrapped its hand around my throat before jerking me from the ground.
I hung in its grip and I saw my death in its eyes.
Nic came at it and I tried to signal him to stop. What was the point? All he was going to do was piss it off even more.
Nic’s machete went straight through the demon, the tip of it appearing out through its stomach.
The sound of the creature’s scream ripped the night open. Rain had started to fall and it mingled with the creature’s black blood, causing it to sizzle and smoke as it dripped to the ground.
It screamed again as Nic jerked the blade free, dropping me in the process as it grabbed at the wound.
Nic swung again, but the beast saw him coming, slamming his fist into the side of Nic’s head, sending him crumpling to the ground like a puppet whose strings had been severed.
The beast stared down at me, the pain and rage that filled its eyes leaving me in no doubt of what it wanted to do to me.
“Come near me again and I will kill you myself. I have enough power left for that,” I said, my voice hoarse.
It was a lie; I had no idea if I had enough power for something like that, but it had the desired effect I was looking for and the beast paused. Blood continued to drip from its stomach and each breath it took caused its abdomen to bulge against the wound.
“You’re lying,” it said, cocking its head to the side in order to study me a little more carefully.
“Try me,” I answered, preparing to throw everything I had left at the creature that wanted to rip my head off.
Whatever it saw in my face was enough to spread doubt through it and I felt the tension in my shoulders slowly shrink.
When the creature moved, it lunged towards me faster than my human eyes could follow. Its clawed hand dug into my shoulder blade as it drove me backwards onto the ground.
Agony flared through me, the smell of burning human and demon flesh filling my nostrils as the demon glared down at me.
“If you try to kill me, you, too, shall die, and if you send me back to Hell then you are coming with me, pretty Mistress.” the demon gritted the words out as it held me down.
I felt the brand sear into the skin of my right shoulder, and I knew the brand that slowly flared into existence on the demon’s shoulder would be a perfect match for the one his touch was burning into my flesh at that very moment.
It released me as quickly as it had grabbed me and disappeared through the tombstones. From the corner of my eye, I could see it loping away, like an animal making its escape.
And, in a way, that was exactly what it was. And there was not a damn thing I could do about it.
Nic groaned and my heart flipped in my chest; he wasn’t dead and neither was Graham. Christina was alive. We’d actually managed to save the day, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d still failed.
From my position on the ground, I watched the rain as it fell from the sky, and the sound of sirens blaring cut through the night.
I wasn’t dead.
I’d survived.
But for how long, well, that was something I didn’t have an answer for.
Chapter 35
Sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, I stared out the window, watching the lights from the city slowly flicker on one by one. Being stuck in hospital wasn’t my idea of fun, and the sooner I could get out, the better.
“Aren’t you supposed to be in bed, resting?”
I swung around to face Graham with a smile as he stepped into the room. He looked tired and much older than I remembered him to be.
“How’s Jessica?” I asked, moving from the bed over to the bag of clothes sitting on the chair on the opposite side of the room.
Two visits to the same hospital in as many days—it was a step too far. The sooner I could get out, get back on the street and start hunting Lily down once more, the better I would feel. She was dangerous, and the thought of her still out there left me with a bad taste in my mouth.
“Upset, as you can imagine. As far as she’s concerned, I’m nothing more than the Devil; I allowed you to kill Zac. I don’t think she’s ever going to forgive me for that.”
I nodded and chewed my lip. That should have been the least of her worries, after what she had done; after the crimes she’d been involved in, I knew what would happen and, deep down, so did Graham.
“She’ll come around eventually.”
“I don’t want them to pursue the death penalty, Amber.” Graham said, suddenly catching my arm and swinging me around to face him.
“That’s not my call to make and you know it.”
“I know that, but you’ve got some sway with the department now; we both know it. You can tell them she was under Zac’s influence. It wouldn’t be a lie.”
I shook my head and slowly untangled myself from Graham’s grip. The sadness in his eyes was almost too much to bear, but I could see his acceptance lurking there, too.
He knew what would happen; he knew what was coming for Jessica, and if Elite pushed the issue then it was practically a done deal. She’d be executed without question or thought and there wasn’t a thing either of us could do about it.
“It’s just she’s my little girl, Amber. I lost her once because I didn’t protect her, I didn’t look out for her the way a father should, and now this….” He trailed off and I blinked back the tears that coated my lashes.
I’d seen the look in Jessica’s face, the hate and the hunger as she’d stood over her father’s body. He hadn’t seen it then, but when she went for him when he was still tied to the tree.
Well, he
wasn’t wearing bandages from his neck down over his shoulder and arm because he cut himself shaving, and that was for sure. She’d gone for him, wanted to tear his throat out, and despite all of that, he still loved her. He was still fighting to save her.
I couldn’t say the same thing about my mother. As soon as she’d realised what I was, she’d packed me off to America. To the one place that would turn against me if it ever truly knew what I was.
If it had come out back in Ireland that I was a Shadow Sorceress, people would have been afraid. I’d have been an outsider, but no one would have been gunning for my head.
Over here, if anyone learned of what I was, then I would have a target on my back and it would only be a matter of time.
Of course, that was only if I survived the demon mark. The thought of ending up in Hell didn’t fill me with glee, but at least it was something solid to focus on.
“I know she is. I know you love her but, Graham, you and I both know what she did. What she allowed herself to get caught up in. She might still be your little girl, but in the eyes of the law … well, she didn’t have any qualms hurting Christina….”
Graham scrubbed his hands over his face and shook his head, as though such a simple action could rid him of all the terrible thoughts running through his head.
“I know that, I just….” He fell silent and I watched him piece himself back together.
He didn’t raise his face and meet my gaze until his blank cop face was back in place, hiding all of his emotions from view. But I knew they were there, bubbling just beneath the surface, waiting for the opportunity to burst forth.
“Christina’s grandparents came to pick her up; they’re going to take her upstate to live with them after the funeral.”
I smiled. “The change of scenery will do her good. Staying around here, it’ll just be a constant reminder of all the things she’s lost, and she really doesn’t need that right now.”
Graham nodded and stared off into the distance as if thinking of another time and place. I could only hope for his sake that it was a happier time.
“Don’t give up on her yet, Graham; she’s safe for now. Neither of us know what the future holds,” I said, touching his arm gently, causing him to jump.
A Grave Magic: The Shadow Sorceress Book One Page 18